ULAN BATAAR: 22nd December '04 --  It may have been an uncharacteristically warm -12 degrees (C) in Ulan Bataar today; at this time of year the temperature could be -30 or lower, but Salesian hearts are warm as Christmas approaches.  At least two more Salesians are heading this way to boost the present complement of 5, which means the new Darhan project is looking better, and the Congregation has chosen MONGOLIA as the Mission focus for 2005.

    Actually, for the EAO Region, this is the fourth lucky strike in 10 years!  1994 Cambodia, 1999 Japan/Solomon Islands, 2000 PNG and now Mongolia.

    Salesian Mission Day (known elsewhere by its Italian acronym DOMISAL) 2005 has been presented differently this time round.  You can actually see us in action now via an 18 minute DVD production which is first class as a piece of video editing.  There is a CD with text versions - the scripts from the DVD plus other useful teaching material, and all of this in seven languages.  The texts are currently available at www.sdb.org – regions – EAO – documents (two files – one with the text of the DVD, another with the texts of the CD) – both in English: cf. the table of content in the CD. One or two of the English textual materials could have a better translation, and such will be available from today on the website, but this ought not detract from a wonderful effort by the Missions Department to present Mongolia in its true light from a Salesian point of view.

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